Sprint Speciale – Page 4

November 23, 2009

Cleaning up my SS and TI gauges

Update 11/23/09: I started back in on the SS so I thought another repost about working on it would be good. I am especially proud of my efforts on this post and the one that followed it.
I have spent a lot of time going through catalogs and making shopping lists so the GTV has to be sold soon to buy a bunch of the stuff I need. If you have any interest in a 69 GTV let me know. It wont be expensive. I am working on the SS rear end right now so look for another post about it soon.
Original post 6/27/09. I know it’s hard to believe but I did some work on my SS! The buyer of Market 1 SS, that had the incorrect earlier style gauges, bought the Italian/metric gauges that came out of my SS so I started cleaning up the US market gauges I had been contemplating using. Funny what a wad of cash can help you decide. The condition of the US gauges turned out to be one of those better and worse at the same time deals. Cosmetically they looked bad and the guts were in need of cleaning and lubricating, but the fundamental parts were presentable and most important, the plastic had not yellowed, so I could make a good set out of them with a little effort.

The fruit of my labor. Lot’s of spiffy gauges ready to tell me how I and my car(s) are doing. Still need to clean up the SS tach.

Continue reading “Cleaning up my SS and TI gauges”

November 17, 2009

Suspension #1: Front lower wishbone and ball joint

Update 11/17/09: I’ll be moving the Fiat out tonight and moving the SS to front row center and starting to work on it again this weekend. All the suspension pieces could be assembled to the car by the end of the year if my plans to get floors in the car work out.

Original Post 5/22/08: I am going to use the parts book terms for these parts so there is no confusion as to what I am talking about.

The front suspension on my SS was lightly assembled without shocks to make the car a roller and it came apart without any problems. Most of the pieces just need cleaning and painting so I will deal with those as a group later, but there are some components that require great care in cleaning and restoring. The lower wishbone is one of these parts because there are several critical systems tied to it: the bushed suspension support pivots, lower ball joint, suspension limiting rebound strap, sway bar mount and lower spring seat. In this post I am going to look at the wishbone itself with regard to cleaning, and the disassembly of the ball joint. I was advised to leave the ball joints together but this one had enough play that I was worried about it having to come apart later anyway. The parts book has only one part number (101.00.21.030.00) for the wishbone that fits all 101 cars and 2 are required for each car so it must be symmetrical.

The suspension components on my SS were treated with some kind of rust inhibitor that is very hard to remove, requiring a combination of scraping and media blasting. Once I have the wishbone stripped bare I tape over the openings to the support pivot bushings, to prevent blast media from getting into the grease passage ways and I masked the ball joint opening to keep media out and grease from getting in the blast cabinet. For a first pass I spend about 10 minutes removing as much of the loose coating as possible and I focus on the snap ring on the ball joint threaded ring nut. This snap ring has to be removed to thread the ring nut out.

Wishbone masked off and ready to be blasted.

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November 9, 2009

Fasteners #1: Introduction and cleaning oily fasteners

Update 11/9/09. Alas yes, I have gotten a bunch of work done on my projects but haven’t found time to write a proper post about it. I started driving the GTV to work and tonight the battery gave up on my way home. A friend picked me up, and we got it going. I borrowed a new battery from another friend until I can figure out if it’s alternator or battery related. On the bright side I had just spent a half an hour getting the heater core hooked up and heater fan working so I wont freeze on the way to work at 630 am tomorrow.

Enjoy the below post which maybe 3 people read the first time around.

Originally posted May 9th, 2008. Years ago when someone would ask me how I managed to get a project together, and wasn’t I daunted by all the parts that they saw laying about I would reply casually, ‘It’s all just nuts and bolts with a few special parts thrown in’. Little did I know how true this ingenuous response was. I didn’t however grasp the complexity and importance of those nuts and bolts.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was working on the rear axle ‘casing and covers’ to quote the parts book. Besides a few big obvious parts I ended up with a pile of nuts bolts and washers. I usually bag and tag the fasteners after cleaning, or loosely assemble the parts if possible, but sometimes I get interrupted and 3 weeks later I find myself faced with a crusty pile of unfamiliar nuts and washers to try and identify. I looked at the parts bookto see how much information it had on these and it has a simple but useful nomenclature: what it is, what size it is, what it’s for. I guess if I get in any trouble I can reference the parts book.

Axle housing nut getting cleaned up.

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November 7, 2009

Bodywork #1: Full body workout

Update 11/7/09. I’m happy to say this rerun series seems to be doing well. Todays installment should show clearly why this car is not on the road. If I can display the same tenacity towards this car as I have the TI or Berlina it will get done. It’s just going to take a while.

Originally posted May 2nd 2008, my third blog post! Just a quick guided tour of what the body needs. Remind yourself that surface rust looks worse than it is in pictures. The plan at this point is to scrape off the undercoating with a putty knife and use abrasive wheels etc on the rust. I have had lots of suggestions to take the body to the blasters and this is probably what I will end up doing.

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November 6, 2009

D&S #2: Receiving my new SS

Update 11/6/09: Following yesterdays installment is this one. I saw that some of you peeked ahead and read this by following the link at the bottom of the page. Sorry, nothing new for you guys. Don’t worry, there will be a few new posts this weekend if the load of new parts in the back of the Sprint is any indication. How’s the novel coming you ask? I think I’m at about 7000 words right now. I plan to be a few thousand ahead by Sunday evening.

Originally posted May 1, 2008. My second blog post ever!Money was paid, promises made and in early December 2007 I was the proud owner of a 1961 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale. Between Christmas duties and ski trips for the kids it took about a month for the seller to gather the boxes of parts, pull the car out of storage and get everything loaded up and ready to ship. I have had bad experiences shipping cars through brokers so I did some searching and found Randy of Motor Auto Express on Hemmings.com. His was the only listing I found that simply had his cell phone number and what seemed like a good sign, he works out of Washington. I called Randy on a Monday afternoon and the car was picked up the following Friday. Randy was as professional as could be asked for and I am very happy with his service and have recommended him several times.

Of course the day the car arrived at my shop it was raining. Hard. Randy’s truck rolls up and amazingly the rain stops. When the door opens and the car is revealed my heart sinks, not necessarily because the car is worse than I expected, it’s just the gravity of the project settles on me with its full weight. This car needs a lot of work, a lot of work I know how to do in theory but have never attempted. I change the one flat tire and we roll it out of the truck. OK, maybe it is worse than I thought, or was I just glossing over the rough edges. I’ll have to review the pictures again to see if it was me who misled myself.

I unpack the boxes, make a list of parts that are present to compare with what was promised and take some pictures. The parts list will also be helpful as I start searching for missing parts. My work space is a little cramped so I decide the first thing I should do is build a loft to put shelves and work tables on so I can spread out. As I drive home from the shop I am wondering what I have gotten myself into. Pictures below are from the day after the car was dropped off.

Someone had started this project. The brownish-black is some sort of rust inhibiting paint.

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November 5, 2009

D&S #1: My Sprint Speciale acquisition Story

Update 11/5/2009: I am participating in the NaNoWriMo this month, a 50,000 word novel written in 30 days. I’ve written about 5000 as of writing this, I started on the afternoon of the 2nd so I have a day of catch-up to do. My participation there means I will have less words to add to Giuliettas.com. In addition to that I purchased a years supply of real honest-to-god web hosting so I have a learning curve ahead of me figuring out how to have the blog stay as it is but the pages with registers and histories and all that expand and be easier to navigate.

In light of the above, and considering I am going to be back on the SS full time once the Fiat is finished and the 69 GTV is daily driveable, both of which are days away from happening, I am going to rerun a lot of the posts about the my Sprint Speciale to remind the reader of how I got it and what I’ve done so far. I think 7 people read this post the first time around so it will be new to most of you. Enjoy!

Original post from April 2008. My first blog post ever! Why give up a perfectly doable 1972 GTV project and undertake a very challenging Giulietta SS project? There are lots of reasons that have nothing to do with common sense, among them: the persistent desire to own and drive an SS, the ever increasing value of SS’s making the prospect of buying one in the future ever more remote, the desire to accomplish a challenging long-term project; any of these is answer enough. If you ask yourself though, as I did: “What classic sports car project, that is not a pipe-dream given my financial circumstances, do I REALLY want to spend money and time on, own long term, and drive?” The answer should inform your hobby as it did mine. Life is short, too short to work on a car you are not extremely excited about. Whatever car is the answer to the question above is the car you should be after. For me it is, and has been for the last 8 years, the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale.

Period advertising shot. I suppose I’ll have to dapper it up when I drive mine.

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October 7, 2009

SS 00121 Engine #2: Clean up and assembly

After 9 months in gestation, this baby is going back together. I have been stumbling over parts to this engine (main caps here, front cover there, toe stubbed on crank under rag) while treadng the circuitous detour paths paved by the Sprint, Berlina, TI, Fiat, Multipla, and GTV and it is time to get it together before any of it’s parts disappear.

I’ve been throwing in one part for this rebuild with every Centerline order and, with a few exceptions, I think I have everything required to get this thing together.

This engine had been sitting in the corner until the Sprint engine came off the stand, at which point it went back on. Refreshing the 2 liter for the TI meant it came back off. A couple of weeks ago in a fit of working against entropy, I got it back on the stand, gathered up all the parts I had stumbled over in the last 9 months and made the practical decision to put it together soon. Practical becasue a: it’s hard to loose engine parts that are assembled with foot pounds and sealer/glue to a very large heavy object and b: if I have nice shiny three thousand dollar engine waiting to go in the SS I might be more motivated. Continue reading “SS 00121 Engine #2: Clean up and assembly”

September 18, 2009

Twofer… TI Tidy 25 + A garage full, what to do…

First a news flash: I added a subscription service to the blog so now you can make it so you get an email when ever I add a new post instead of checking back every hour and pushing the refresh button! The link is on the top right side. Click on the more button to see TI Tidy 25 and some musings on what I am going to do with all my needy cars…

Sprint as photographed by Ben on the Melee. Amazing how good a quality camera makes it look!

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February 28, 2009

SS details #3: Marelli wiper motor

I mentioned I was digging through my parts organizing them, well I came across this Giulietta SS Marelli wiper motor at the same time as the heater vents. It has been patiently waiting for me to clean it up and test it. It looked pretty good and clean on the outside but you know what they say about appearances so I decided to have a quick peek inside of it. I’ve never gotten into an electric motor besides a Bosch 105 starter that I took apart after it burned up from a solenoid stuck on. Imagining this wiper motor is only used on Giulietta SS’s and Ferrari 250 Lusso’s I went slow and was gentle with the tools.

wiper motor 1 This is the before shot. I had been messing around with an old Weber so I had some fresh carb cleaner handy to clean the goo off the outside.

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February 25, 2009

Details #2: SS defroster vents

I was digging through my parts again yesterday trying to organize stuff and get the parts for the SS grouped logically for when I get back on it once the Sprint engine rebuild is complete. I ran across a set of windshield defroster vents I picked up a while ago and a set I picked up recently and wow, big difference. The parts book has two vents for the Giulietta SS and 3 vents plus a junction for the Giulia SS. I guess the Giulietta has problems with the window fogging and the defrost system required a redesign. Check them out below.

00120-vents-382 These are the Giulieta items fresh from the media blast cabinet. These are contoured at the top to follow the curve of the windshield/dash intersection. The clamp up top is a cotter pin style and was used to clamp the defroster hose to the vent.

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